Just reporting back. Still have problem with ! icon and shares greyed out but they all work anyway now. And pulls work as h.264 video without transcode now.

I blew away my pytivo install and started fresh so it was something mucking up the works with many many over writes of new pytivo code over the years. I have no idea when pulls quit working for me as I had not used them in a long time. Over a year.

Anyway, with current code and a less cluttered conf file built from the conf.dist file, I am working again. And pushes are back as well thanks to tivo rebooting the mind server.

Thanks everyone. Sorry to have hogged so much bandwidth. Looking foreward to the next big thing....

Yeah, that ! icon is a pain. My wife has asked me at least a hundred times if something is wrong with our video server.

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Yeah, that ! icon is a pain. My wife has asked me at least a hundred times if something is wrong with our video server.

Well, the answer is yes. Namely, it's not getting zeroconf packets to the TiVo. But, if you upgrade to my latest, AND you have only video shares (no music or photos), then you should be rid of the problem, even with zeroconf not working.

You can also force a fix even with music and photo shares active, IF you don't mind them appearing as "Music on sharename's PC" instead of "sharename". (Or, of course, you could run two different instances of pyTivo on different ports, one for video and one for music and photos.)

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Well, the answer is yes. Namely, it's not getting zeroconf packets to the TiVo. But, if you upgrade to my latest, AND you have only video shares (no music or photos), then you should be rid of the problem, even with zeroconf not working.

You can also force a fix even with music and photo shares active, IF you don't mind them appearing as "Music on sharename's PC" instead of "sharename". (Or, of course, you could run two different instances of pyTivo on different ports, one for video and one for music and photos.)

I only use video with pyTivo so I will do that over the weekend...thanks!

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The TiVo Service Number, or TSN, is included in each request the TiVo makes to pyTivo. The first three digits are basically the model number of the TiVo. Series 3 units have a TSN that starts with "6"; Series 4 units' TSNs start with "7". The Series 2DT's TSN starts with "649", so it's treated as a special case. Other Series 2 TSNs start with "5" or lower.

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The TiVo Service Number, or TSN, is included in each request the TiVo makes to pyTivo. The first three digits are basically the model number of the TiVo. Series 3 units have a TSN that starts with "6"; Series 4 units' TSNs start with "7". The Series 2DT's TSN starts with "649", so it's treated as a special case. Other Series 2 TSNs start with "5" or lower.

So since I have a 652160 I have no reason to set the SD portion of the config file. That's nice to know.

Something that occurred to me a while back vis-ŕ-vis installing updates to pyTivo - is it possible that Python isn't always checking the mod date of the .pyc file against the .py file, particularly on subsidiary modules, so that you end up using the old .pyc file?

This show appears squished on the TV. The aspect ration is waaaay off. The people are tall and skinny and I have black bars on both sides. Any sugestion to make this play right?

Try "Full" mode via the Zoom button?

It's a weird resolution, but the FFmpeg output says that it was marked as a 4:3 video, and that this was conveyed in the copy. If it was actually meant to be 16:9, but was flagged 4:3, that's not too unusual.

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It's a weird resolution, but the FFmpeg output says that it was marked as a 4:3 video, and that this was conveyed in the copy. If it was actually meant to be 16:9, but was flagged 4:3, that's not too unusual.

The par = 1.0 appears acceptable except I notice it's cropping the top and bottom of 4:3 SD shows. I would prefer to have the video uncropped with left and right black bars on 4:3 shows like this but this seems like a fair comprise and certainly livable. Optres = True was giving me left and right black bars until I got to this show so who knows, I may put that back and see if this alternative remedy will work for just this show.

Quote:

Alternative option: Specify par in metadata txt files by adding "Override_par : x.xxxx" to a metadata file associated with the video file. If all files in the folder have the same par, add the option to a file called default.txt instead of creating individual metadata files.

The particular file in question is improperly encoded. Note the resolution shown in the ffmpeg information is 352x478 indicating the video is taller than it is wide. The resolution is encoded backwards. Should have been 478x352. Its unlikely the video will ever look reasonable if re-encoded to a correct 4:3 resolution.

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Note the resolution shown in the ffmpeg information is 352x478 indicating the video is taller than it is wide. The resolution is encoded backwards.

No -- 352 is one of the standard widths for NTSC, and 480 is one of the standard heights (I'm assuming there were just two lines cropped). Like I say, it's weird -- usually you'd see 352x240 (VCD) or 704x480 (or some other width). But these dimensions weren't flipped. In fact, I think 352x480 might even be a resolution that the TiVo generates, in a low-quality mode.

Obviously it's not using square pixels, but neither are any of the above. (640x480 is 4:3 with square pixels.)

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"par = 1.0" doesn't even do anything, normally. I actually took out the "par" option in my latest versions, since in the extremely rare cases where it's useful, it's only so on a per-video basis.

You don't say what kind of TiVo you have?

I have two, a TivoHD and a premier.

Wow, now this is really weird to me but you're absolutely right, I removed the par = 1.0 and it still fills the screen. However, pushing the window button rotates me through panel, zoom and full but it doesn't change the appearance on the screen like it normally does but I left it in panel per your advice.

Why I say it's weird is that everything is back to the way it initially was yet it seems to be acceptable at this point. There is still noticeable cropping at the top and bottom but the picture fills my 16:9 CRT and the people aren't distorted ie.. tall and skinny or short and fat so I guess it kind of fixed itself along the way.

This is the TV I have http://www.amazon.com/JVC-AV-30W475-.../dp/B0002V242E and I continually have troubles with aspect ratio's. Is there an optimal setting I should be using? This is my config file. If possible I would like to have 4:3 shows appear square in the middle of the screen with black bars on the left and right. This way I know the aspect ratio is correct and that's I'm not losing the top and bottom due to cropping.

Additionally, you don't need to specify the locations of the binaries if they're in the PATH, unless there are other versions earlier in the PATH that you don't want. And you shouldn't have to specify the beacon address in most cases, either.

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Ah. You might've mentioned that earlier... I assume these are 4:3 sets, like most CRTs? And, you have "TV Aspect Ratio" set to 4:3? That would explain why the Aspect button doesn't work on your SD video.

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Ah. You might've mentioned that earlier... I assume these are 4:3 sets, like most CRTs? And, you have "TV Aspect Ratio" set to 4:3? That would explain why the Aspect button doesn't work on your SD video.

It says it's 16x9 but because it's a CRT I think it's taking the 4:3 and stretching it. I don't believe 16x9 was broadcast back in the CRT days but I could easily be wrong. So my confusion is figuring out what it wants to be fed???

Does it want 4:3 and let it stretch it until the aspect ratio looks awful (it really does) or can I feed it 16x9 which should look better but for some reason gets the crap cropped out of it.

I would appreciate one of you experts taking a look at the specs on page 46 and recommend both Tivo and pyTivo settings. I am stumped trying to get a consistent decent looking picture.

Ditch the TV and get a new one. The reviews on Amazon hint at what that set can't really do, which is anything beyond 480 video. Even a cheap Vizio or a Westinghouse would do a FAR better job. The money you'd save on powering that beast for a year would probably pay for a new LCD TV.

Ditch the TV and get a new one. The reviews on Amazon hint at what that set can't really do, which is anything beyond 480 video. Even a cheap Vizio or a Westinghouse would do a FAR better job. The money you'd save on powering that beast for a year would probably pay for a new LCD TV.

Thanks for the advice but I was just laid off the old job... Offshoring... I doubt if I'll be buying anything soon and this one I got free though I can see why they were tossing it out. My 36" GE just died so I was hoping this one would get me by until I get back on my feet.

Interesting device. Um... you may have to switch the TV's aspect instead of the TiVo's. "Cinema" is the only mode I see that crops anything (although there's probably always some overscan). You'd only want to use that for letterboxed 4:3 material (like the "Zoom" mode on the TiVo). "Regular" and "Full" should be useful more often. (Personally I would never use "Panorama".)

ISTR some issues with 16:9 in 480i on the TiVo, but I'll have to get back to you on that.

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Well, I try very hard not to bother those of you that provide these marvelous tools for free but I've reached the hair pulling stage and I haven't that much left. I've been using pytivo for several years exclusively to transfer video from my PC to my Tivo(s). Never had any major problem and the minor ones ere easily resolved reading the forums etc. Sadly, it became necessary to format and reinstall XP on my ancient laptop I use as a media server. That went surprisingly well but now pytivo will not work. Or at least transfers to the Tivos won't work. Oddly, pulling files from the Tivo to the computer does work(and I'd never even tried to do that before). I've uninstalled and carefully reinstalled using the latest wmcbrine files(several times), lastest ffmpeg and latest tivodecode. I can connect to the web configuration at localhost:9032 . I can pull files from the Tivos. I can see MyVideos(and the files therein) on the Tivo Now Playing screen but when I try to transfer a file to the Tivo nothing happens but a blank blue screen. I have the sense this is some sort of configuration error but I'm darned if I can figure it out.

Well, he might also want to leave in the log stuff. But yeah, all the "option = <blank>" lines are unnecessary, and in the case of the "ffmpeg_wait = <blank>" line, it's what's causing the error. I may need to make the parsing more robust there, because pyTivo can handle blanks in some other cases. But there's no reason to have those lines in there.

I know it's been said before, but I'll say it again, THANK YOU!
I just went through a rebuild, and after pulling all my shows down I finally took the plunge into pytivo to start pushing them back, so far, no issues, easy instructions, even for someone like me with only basic python knowledge, the tips have been great.

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